Upon the Edge of a Knife
by Conquistadora
Summary: As the Ring attempts to destroy the Fellowship, new understandings and friendships arise in spite of it. On the bleak winter plains of Eregion, a lonely captain of Gondor realizes that he does not face either his temptation or the great war alone.


Boromir sat on watch at the edge of the camp, if such it could be called. Only the sharp starlight shed any illumination upon the barren landscape of Hollin, offering no imagined warmth to offset the nip of the winter wind howling faintly about the darkened valley. He pulled his fur-lined cloak closer about him in vain attempt to hide from its icy fingers, holding his rounded shield upright beside him to blunt the steady, incessant blast.

The others of the Fellowship slept behind him despite the discomfort, all of them wearied by their seemingly endless march through the lands west of the Misty Mountains. He could hear the subdued snoring of the Dwarf, the occasional rustle of a restless Halfling. The pony lay near him in the darkness, grunting intermittently in dissatisfaction with the cold and hard ground that served for a paddock. By now they all missed Rivendell, but Boromir would not have turned back if given the chance. His course lay to the south, regardless of what befell this troop. His father awaited him; his people awaited him.

He tossed a few idle pebbles into the dark, heard them fall in the blackness beyond his sight. His father was of some concern to him, for the Lord Denethor had taken a more and more pessimistic view as the days passed, growing even more bitter than usual with only a thin veil of pleasantry. A nameless and festering discontent had settled on their household, for which it seemed Faramir often bore the brunt. Boromir shifted in his furs again, feeling a pang of sympathy for his younger brother. No matter how noble or valiant Faramir's deeds, their father's commendation seemed to lie forever beyond his reach. Faramir had not been born a warrior; he would have better made a scholar, if the duties thrust upon him allowed it. He would have enjoyed Rivendell.

Ruefully, Boromir began to believe it had indeed been Faramir's place to search out the Elven city and bring their tidings while he remained with their people at the war front. He did not belong here; he was misplaced in this Fellowship. He had pledged them his honor and courage, but their goal perturbed him. To send the Ring brazenly into the Enemy's land seemed madness, if not mindless betrayal of their own cause. Would he willingly aid and abet the downfall of Gondor? He fidgeted uncomfortably on the uneven ground, meeting the impasse of his loyalties. He could not defy the Fellowship, but neither did he wish to serve its need above that of his own land. Gondor held his first duty, which was and would ever remain his last end. What, then, did that duty require of him? Would he be justified in standing betwixt Mithrandir and Mordor for the sake of all his homeland? That was what Denethor would do, who had never been fond of wizards and their ways. _Gondor at all costs,_ he would counsel. _What do these Elves and Half-Elves know of our plight? They dwell in joy at the cost of our blood! See that they do not take you in. Remember the Gondor you left, with foes poised upon her flanks, waiting to crush her._ Were these thoughts his own? _IT lies behind you. So close now. You hold our fate in your hands._ He writhed where he sat, the imagined whisper of his father's voice falling to become guttural and inhuman. _Boromir,_ it growled with hideous allure; _Borrromir . . ._

"The night is silent."

He started with a sharp gasp, though the comment was soft-spoken. It was the Elf, Legolas, a slender figure of lithe shadow at his side. His heart was pounding fiercely now, but even so distracted Boromir noticed a trace of suspicion on that fair and pale face, a fey solemnity.

Legolas did not offer the characteristic apology for coming on him unawares, and it seemed to Boromir that the Elf either knew or suspected by some clairvoyance his perilous interior strife. Boromir strove for calm while Legolas softly paced the ground beside him. The Elf's steps fell lightly in the gravelly debris underfoot; he crossed his arms over his chest against the cold and turned his face to the stars. Legolas still remained largely unknown to him, a companion so familiar and yet so distant, shrouded in quiet mystery, as obscure as the shadows that now veiled him. The Elves were still new to him, and though facinating to observe, they were not yet given his full trust.

"Does _It_ speak to you as well?" Legolas asked at last. The wind mingled his fair hair with the ruff of dark fur lining the disregarded hood of his cloak, but he remained perfectly still, majestically impervious to the elements as it seemed.

The direct query was unexpected, and Boromir almost denied it. But Elves would not be easily deceived. "Yes," he admitted, hunkering down a bit behind his shield. "It does."

Legolas nodded, more in approval of the truth than of aught else. "It speaks to us all." He ceased his aimless pacing to sink into a feline crouch a respectful distance from Boromir, his cloak pooling around him on the ground like smooth pitch. The muted howl of the wind assumed a more lupine voice in the distance, and Aragorn tossed in his sleep. Alerted by feral instinct, both Man and Elf reflexively glanced back.

_Aragorn._ There was another who preyed upon his mind. Boromir's feelings toward this self-proclaimed Heir of Isildur were still confused. To witness the final return of the King would be something great, but as heir to the Stewardship he might be excused for not feeling particularly gracious. But if this Ranger's claim was true, who were they to oppose him? Faramir would not, but the choice would not fall to him. Denethor would not relinquish his power easily, Sword or no Sword.

He returned from these musings to find Legolas sitting on the coarse windswept grass beside the pony, who had been unsettled by the far-off baying of the wolves. The Elf held the sorrel head in his lap, gently stroking the slender ears and speaking softly in his own tongue. His words Boromir could almost understand, for the Rangers of the South often used a form of the woodland speech amongst themselves, but it had been long sundered from those who spoke and remembered its ancient form. The sight now strangely reminded him of his brother, who had once held a dying comrade even as the Elf held the horse, soothing his death with quiet words. Legolas' fair hands seemed heedless of the cold, even as Boromir flexed his chilled fingers inside his gloves. _To see Faramir reflected in an Elf._ Strangely it did not surprise him.

Oh, it chafed him to be here when he longed to be back in Gondor and Ithilien, where he and Faramir defended the White Tower and the Eastern frontier. That battle he understood, not this underhanded scheming against mysterious powers unseen. But brave and honorable though it was, it was a battle with little hope, for Mordor waxed even as Gondor waned. But here – here was a weapon that could turn the tide of this war, if only he could bring it to their aid!

_"Peace, _Boromir," Legolas admonished him, caressing the pony with slow, somnolent strokes, rendering the good beast blissfully insensible. "Long ago I learned the uselessness of worry. Do not imagine you alone have troubles of home and household to weigh upon you."

Boromir started, for such a thought had indeed flitted briefly across his mind. He had paid but little heed to Legolas at the Council, a strange Elf from some faraway realm beyond the mountains, a place and people of little practical concern to him. But what of Mirkwood? It was said they had difficulties of their own, for it was only by the spell of the Elves that the ways through the wood were passable at all. There was the barest mention of an Elvenking of the Northeast in the tales of Isildur that Faramir loved so well. Was Legolas of his kin, shrouded in the mists of ancient lore and memory? The agelessness of the Eldar defied his practical mind, and he had to drop his gaze a moment, finding the very thought disconcerting that there still lived beings in the world who remembered the days before Gondor, before even Númenor.

"Neither believe that the Men of Gondor bear alone the blows of the Enemy," Legolas continued in afterthought. There was no boast in his voice, merely a twinge of fraternal sympathy. "I listened well to what you said of your plight. _The Men of Gondor are valiant,_ you said, _and they will never submit; but they may be beaten down."_ He turned to Boromir with a strange, almost chilling smile in the dim twilight, a smile without humor, without mirth. "That I understand. Gondor as the bulwark of the South is well and good, but have you given heed at all to the evil that passes in the North? Or are you blind to the strife that ever threatens to undermine the very peace and freedom you fancy you protect?"

_What do these Elves and Half-Elves know of our plight? They dwell in joy at the cost of our blood._ Those words unspoken returned to haunt him as he began unwillingly to realize just how little they did know of the world beyond their boundaries. He knew now he must have sounded a fool proclaiming to the Council their utter dependence upon the strength of Men, true enough though it had seemed at the time. What did pass in the North? The edge that had gleamed then in Legolas' voice suggested other than a life of mindless bliss. One warrior will recognize another. He had seen the old warlords in Rivendell, fair and hale but largely idle; they had set their arms aside long ago. This one was different. This one he could almost understand.

"What would have become of peace in the North if the fortress of Dol Guldur were left uncontested?" Legolas went on gently, expecting no answer, pulling aside the veil of the unknown to reveal concerns that had no voice in Gondor. "What would become of Dale and the Dwarvish Mountain? Who then would repel the advance of the Rhûnath, the Easterlings, when the realms of the West were no more? There are many foes yet in this world that you know not, but they are ours to contain. We all have our own duties to attend, just as a spider's web is held in place by many strands."

_It would comfort us to know that others fought also with all the means that they have,_ he had said, somewhat disgruntled at his rebuff by the Council. _Then be comforted,_ Elrond had answered. _For there are other powers and realms that you know not, and they are hidden from you. Anduin the Great flows past many shores ere it comes to Argonath and the Gates of Gondor._

"The stage is set," the Elf continued almost to himself with some fey satisfaction, tracing a faint map in the pony's hair reminiscent of the strategic war games so familiar in Gondor. "Sauron and the Haradrim shall break upon Gondor, Saruman upon the Horselords, the Easterlings upon Dale and Erebor, who are in turn shielded upon their flank from Dol Guldur, which lies cordoned between Thranduil in the North and Celeborn in the South as between the blades of scissors. The Dark Lord is contained on all fronts, son of Men. May the Valar grant them victory."

"Yes," Boromir agreed, echoing the sentiment common to them all. "But rather would I be with them to face the end, whatever end it may be. I am of little use plodding along in this _waste."_

His tone seemed to strike a nerve in the Elf, in whom he was beginning to notice some startling echoes of himself. Perhaps the elder race was not so different at heart from the younger. "Do you not think I have left my own father and all my kin to face their battles alone?" he asked. "Every day brings us nearer your homeland, farther from mine." Boromir could read the regret in his voice, as though Legolas too pined for the familiarities of his own, the thrill of defending native borders. It was a sentiment common to all races, a vibrant thread of inarguable kinship uniting Men and Elves, Dwarves and Halflings.

"Then why are you here, Legolas? Why did you choose this if your people are threatened? Any of Elrond's house could have gone, for I feel Rivendell is protected."

"Why are _you_ here?" Legolas countered with another strange half-smile, the wind licking through his hair and making it like chill flame. "You may say that in this I follow an old maxim by which my lord father has often ordered his life. _Ae aníron nad carnen, han cerithon anim._ Wise words, which in your tongue amount to _'If I want aught done, I shall do it myself.' _I do not presume to second-guess Elrond's choice of me, but I accepted this charge because I knew I could be of greater service here. _You_ would not be here if you had not insisted upon making the appointed journey yourself, or am I wrong in remembering that your brother was eager to go in your stead?"

"That is true," Boromir admitted with a sigh, laying a gloved hand to his nose, which had gone numb in the biting wind. "I begin to wonder at the wisdom of that choice."

"Do not wonder," Legolas said firmly, his keen eyes gleaming like shards of ice. "There is no help for it now, and doubt will only weigh upon you. Resign yourself to what you cannot change, and attempt to wring some good from it. Nothing is answerable only to the whim of chance. Nor are we always competent masters of our own fate. Only One knows for certain where our steps shall be guided, and He sees far more than we."

True enough, but his words brought little comfort to Boromir now, when he was not at all certain he wished to follow the path that seemed appointed him. Long he had wanted to think himself his own master, ignoring the whisper of mortal fallibility that sought ever to dissuade him. Legolas was not helping to silence it, but rather had breathed it into a new flame, unsettling and foreboding. Was he walking blind, as only a pawn in a larger game? Who were the real forces at war, the gargantuan powers that would rive the world at its seams in their eternal struggle for supremacy? Gondor and his father, Legolas and the Elven realms, the Dwarves in their mountains and the Halflings in their Shire, were they all but chaff in the wind before the monumental clash that loomed upon the darkened horizon?

"Go, and sleep if you can, my friend," Legolas said at last, interrupting his particularly unpleasant vein of thought. "I shall take your watch, for I will find no rest tonight. Go and sleep while you may."

He doubted he could now, with such roiling visions crowding his mind, but one in his position knew the wisdom of accepting the chance to sleep when one could. He rose without protest and tramped over the tufted, windswept grass to a place far removed from Frodo and the Ring he carried. It would not do to betray his temptation so soon, and Legolas had already divined more of his heart than he could desire. He lay down in as much comfort as could be afforded by a bed of coarse grass and crushed rock, with his sidearms still ready on his belt. He had often slept fully armed, but that made it no more pleasant an experience.

His last vision that night was again of Legolas, the Elf sitting motionless where he had left him, a soft trail of his voice drifting with the wind as he hummed a fair but haunting melody to himself to complement the reigning dark of night. He was strange and distant still, and fleetingly Boromir wondered if all Elves were that way, if one could never truly claim to know them. It would be a shame, he thought, for if they were indeed brothers long sundered, they seemed brothers well worth having. At least, he amended, those of Legolas' stripe. There was something uncompromisingly practical about Legolas that set him apart from great and unfathomable lords who had earned his wary regard, something almost human. Hazarding a guess, Boromir imagined the singular Elven-lord who had sired _this_ remarkable emissary would not be of Elrond's urbane ilk. That figure was still all of shadow, a formidable but still faceless presence of whom he supposed Legolas was a living echo, yet another lord who stood at the eve of a changing world and cautiously tasted the air for the renewed scent of warfare.

Truly it was a far reaching storm poised to break upon them, one that extended beyond mountain and valley and from the plains to the heart of the forests to stir the fires of resistance within every just realm upon the face of Middle-earth. A pity these should only come to recognize one another in the last moments of grace that remained before this, the Last War.


End file.
